Out of Character
by Freyer Meind
Summary: Sherlock does something uncharacteristically instinctive in the line of vanity, and pouts about it. No plot; just a oneshot hospital scene with a few OCs. POVs shift. Rated T for a bit of language and violence.


Author Notes: If all goes according to plan, this will be my first fanfiction to publish in this site, for this fandom. No statements here just yet, I'm simply testing the waters.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock and never will. All familiar characters belong first to Arthur Conan Doyle, and secondly to Mark Gatiss, Stephen Moffat, and to BBC.

* * *

It was one of those times.

John Watson was running, feet pounding the pavement, and cursing himself for having worn his good shoes when he knew Sherlock Holmes was on a hunt. Did he really think he'd have one night out for a date? _I think I've read this chapter before already_, he thought morosely. When he wrote this case up on his blog, his two thousand readers would be rolling their eyes at him for his lack of foresight.

Sherlock was running at vaguely the speed of a 747 about to take flight, operating on the tunnel vision John suspected he developed when he scented prey. John had seen this side of Sherlock first hand before—the only difference this time was that they weren't chasing a serial killer in a cab. They were chasing a serial arsonist who was, by some demonic turn of fate, even faster than Sherlock.

It was one of those times.

The arsonist, barely an outline of a jacket flapping in the wind, the white soles of his running shoes flashing every fraction of a second (at least one of them had the common sense to wear the right shoes for a prolonged foot chase) made a swift right turn. Sherlock followed. So did John.

The right turn opened to a walkway, where people were walking past, or standing idly by, trying to hail a cab. The arsonist thundered through them, shoving pedestrians aside. They screamed in alarm and outrage, not that it made any difference.

Sherlock followed, his own technique no smoother than that of the arsonist. He certainly wasn't any more sympathetic toward the hapless pedestrians whose toes he crushed, or those he ruthlessly bumped against. John, watching the rampage, couldn't help but wince. He was a doctor; pain wasn't something he tolerated if he could help it. Despite the fact that his lungs felt like they were on fire, he managed to shout, "Stop him! Stop that man!", hoping that some civic-minded bystander might at least try and restrain the fleeing pyromaniac. That way, no more pedestrians will be toppled over like so many bowling pins. And also so John Watson can finally stop running.

But said pedestrians merely dived out of the way. And why should they do anything to aid John and Sherlock? It wasn't as though they were police officers; for all they knew, the chasers could be the bad guys.

And then something horrible happened.

Up ahead all three of them, the door to the building standing right beside the busy intersection opened, and a young woman stepped out. She probably wasn't even aware of the chase, as only seconds ago she was safely inside the building. Now, she was getting caught in the crossfire.

"Watch out!" Both John and Sherlock shouted. Was it just John's imagination, or did she actually react quickly by sidestepping at their bellowed warning? Either way, it didn't save her, because the pyromaniac, without even slowing down a step, suddenly grabbed her and, with bear-like strength, hurled her out into the intersection.

Everything after that happened in some frightening, bizarre, stop-motion sequence for John. He saw the widening of the girl's terrified eyes when, even as she tried to step out of the way, the arsonist grabbed her, pinning both her arms to her sides. He saw her mouth open for a scream, before her head was whipped around as the monster tossed her bodily into oncoming traffic. At the back of his mind, he knew he saw the pyromaniac weave expertly to the side, slipping into the sidewalk that ran around the building, but he didn't pay attention to that. It wasn't that important.

He saw the girl fall with bone-jarring force onto the asphalt.

The light had turned green.

And Sherlock kept going forward.

John's heart stopped. "Sherlock!" he shouted. But it didn't help. It didn't help at all.

* * *

In hindsight, going after the arsonist might have been a more fruitful endeavor.

Sherlock had a split second to mull over his hindsight—a split second that can actually qualify as foresight. But his body kept moving forward. Even geniuses had to submit, every now and then, to the whims of instinct.

Even if that instinct proved fatal.

The girl had fallen so hard that the wind had been knocked out of her. Sherlock had suffered similar falls before; he was aware how disorienting they can be. He saw her lift her head, then her torso, off the asphalt with arms that shook . . . and the way her entire body stiffened with fright when half a dozen front lights from approaching vehicles illuminated her, their horns blaring. Somehow, even the mechanical sound managed to convey a considerable amount of alarm.

He would never admit it later on, but intelligence abandoned Sherlock Holmes for a brief second, enough time for him to sprint right out into the metal stream, scoop the girl up into her feet, and push her forward into the relative safety of the sidewalk on the other side. She fell again, but this time, death wasn't bearing down on her twelve feet away, and closing.

No, it was bearing down on Sherlock now. He was standing right in the middle of the street by himself.

A heartbeat before the first car made contact with his body, intelligence came rushing back. Instead of going rigid, as instinct was demanding of him, Sherlock allowed his whole body to go completely slack, but not before he rolled himself _toward_ the hood of the car.

_Pffrrgghh_ . . . that was the sound of his slender frame crushing the hood of the car as he rolled up over it, up against the windshield, and down again. There weren't the right combination of consonants to imitate the sickening thud his body made as he fell off the hood and onto the asphalt. Face, right arm, spine, face again. The revolution stopped; the shock started.

There must've been sound. The frightened screaming of spectators; the whinging of car horns; John yelling at everyone to stay back, let him through, he was a doctor . . .

There must've been sound; an ear-ringing cacophony.

But Sherlock didn't hear a peep.

* * *

The next time Sherlock opened his eyes, he was in a hospital bed. It was to be expected, he supposed, after he'd been hit by a car . . . just how long ago did that take place, anyway? He wasn't sure. His head felt like it had been shot, stuffed with cotton, sewn back up and mounted above some fireplace.

"John?" he squeaked. Yes. Squeaked. His mouth was as dry as the Sahara. He cleared his throat, which only exacerbated the dryness, and tried again. "John!"

"I'm right here," John was, indeed, right there. Seated on a chair beside his cot, in fact. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I've been hit by a car."

"That's normal."

Sherlock grunted. "Where's the arsonist?"

"Are you joking?" John guffawed. "You've narrowly escaped the jaws of death and you ask about—"

"He must've been caught. You always wax poetic when you're thinking up the opening line for a new blog update."

This time, it was John who grumbled. "Yeah, fine, he'd been caught. Sally Donovan was especially brutal when collaring him. I almost thought she cared."

Sherlock laughed, and then yowled. "Arggh! My ribs! How many do I still have left?"

"Rest easy. Aside from an impressive new collection of cuts and scrapes, and never-before-seen discolorations, you're fine. You don't have any broken bones, or even torn muscles. You can even be discharged tomorrow morning." John scooted his chair closer to the bed. "How the hell did you manage that, anyway? It's not the first time you've walked away from getting hit by a car, but the first time I saw you get hit, it wasn't serious at all. This time around you had to get medical care, but you're still intact."

"I relaxed."

"Huh?"

"It's a martial arts technique I learned long ago. Relax every muscle in order to minimize injury. Be as boneless as you possibly can." Sherlock shifted uncomfortably. "My injuries still feel maximized, though."

John nodded thoughtfully. "Boneless. Without bone. That's a unique concept."

Sherlock gingerly sat up and saw what he was wearing. He groaned. "How could you let them humiliate me like this?" he wailed.

"Sherlock, you need to be in a hospital gown. Be an adult about it, will you?"

A knock sounded on the door. Sherlock quickly burrowed underneath the blanket, until he was covered up to his shoulders, wincing as he aggravated every ache that still afflicted him.

The door opened, and a young woman peered inside. Well, _young woman_ was a bit of an overstatement. She couldn't have been a day over twenty.

She was around three pounds or so overweight, with a plain, rounded face, and skin the ashen color of the traumatized. She was still wearing what was obviously a work uniform. There was an angry purple bruise on her left temple, and one forearm was bandaged. Despite these, she managed a smile. "Hello, how are you doing?"

Sherlock frowned. "Who the hell are you?"

The girl's face showed alarmed concern. "Oh, no! He's lost his memory!"

"Of course not! I just don't know you!"

John stood up. "Sherlock, this is Geri Coop," he said, motioning for the girl to enter the room. "The young woman you saved tonight. She works as a dental assistant at the clinic; the one she was just stepping out of earlier tonight, I mean," he continued, when Sherlock simply stared at the girl blankly.

"Oh. Right. Her." In a way, she was right. He _had_ lost his memory, the one pertaining to her, anyway. He eyed what she was wearing with open hostility. "_She's_ not wearing a hospital gown. Was Anderson the primary on my case?"

"We're at St. Bart's, not the Yard," John muttered in exasperation. "Uh, please sit down, Miss Coop."

"Call me Geri, please." She smiled again. "No need to be so polite, after everything that happened tonight." She sat down, her movements stiff. There was a patch of dried blood on the right knee of her pants . . . no, wait. The fabric had been scraped off, and Sherlock was seeing a bloody bandage peeking through.

He licked his lips, feeling something akin to guilt. Although why should he feel guilty? The arsonist had done her harm, not him. In fact, he'd gone out of his way to save her, at the expense of losing his quarry. Sure, the bastard had been caught, anyway, but still . . . he was supposed to be Sherlock's catch. Instead, Donovan was probably getting all the credit for it. What if the next time he saw her, she was already Detective Inspector Sally Donovan? _There will be no living with her after that_. Sherlock eyed Geri's bedraggled appearance irritably. _Why did I do that, anyway?_ As he'd succinctly told John once, heroes don't exist, and even if they did, he wouldn't be one of them.

And yet, the smidgen of guilt remained.

"How about you?" he finally deigned to ask. "Are you okay, Geri?"

"Much better off than I would've been if you didn't push me to safety." She looked pleased at his (pseudo) concern. "Thank you, Mr. Holmes, for what you did for me. It was very brave and selfless of you."

"Very dumb, too," Sherlock groused.

Geri blinked. "What was that?"

John, the eternal mediator, said, "Oh, he just did what anyone would've done, that's all. Perhaps you should get some rest yourself, Geri. It's been a harrowing night for you, too."

Taking the subtle hint, Geri stood up. "Yeah, you're right. I just wanted to personally say thank you. No one's ever done anything like that for me before."

Sherlock made himself smile. All the better to hurry her departure. "Hopefully, no one will ever have to again."

She smiled briefly, and gratefully, before leaving the room.

* * *

Sherlock woke up early the next day, but he still found himself on the same hospital bed. That put him in a sour mood immediately. He did remember that John said he could be discharged that morning; where was John, anyway? Was he arranging Sherlock's leaving this blasted sterile facility?

"Probably," a voice said softly to his right.

And when will he learn to realize that sometimes he just spoke his thoughts out loud?

Sherlock turned his head and saw a nurse, with platinum blond hair rising up from black roots, reading off what he deduced was his medical chart. "Good morning," she said, "Are you feeling better?"

"I am, yes, thank you for asking. What did you mean by 'probably'?"

"You were looking for your friend, right? Well, where else would he be?"

Sherlock frowned. "Or he could be at the 'loo, or the cafeteria eating breakfast—"

"He could be . . . but he told me before he left that's where he'd be. He said you'd be impossible if you couldn't leave this place by noon, at the latest."

Damn John. How could he share such embarrassing information with this virtual stranger? Although, from the looks of her, she was just the type that John would like to chat with, even for just a few minutes, never mind the bottle-blond hair. Sherlock had often thought John preferred natural brunettes. "What does my chart say?" Sherlock jerked his chin toward the chart.

The nurse tipped the pad toward her chest, hiding the contents from his view. "Let's wait for Dr. Watson."

"Let me see." He held out his hand imperiously.

She hesitated with a frown. "We should wait for Dr. Watson. It's not as though you can understand what's in here."

Sherlock's temper flared, but a knock on the door curtailed his verbal flaying; the door opened, and Molly and Mrs. Hudson walked in.

* * *

Sherlock was going to be fine. He was going to be okay.

Molly silently breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a torturous sixteen hours for her. Ever since she heard that he'd been taken to St. Bart's, she'd been in a state of contained panic. It was as though someone had injected Adrenalin into her system just as she'd been drifting off into sleep. Her nerves were frayed, her thoughts were scattered, and somebody should shoot her heart with a tranquilizer gun.

She'd already been at home when she heard the news. John had called her, just to let her know. She was immensely grateful for his sensitivity even though she knew that if Sherlock knew, he wouldn't approve. For once, though, Molly didn't care what Sherlock would think. She dashed about her flat, collecting her things before leaving: her purse, her coat, a pair of scissors . . . details, details.

Picking Mrs. Hudson up from their flat was more of an afterthought than anything else, but Molly was glad she remembered. Mrs. Hudson might seem nervous and fragile, but she was really quite tough. One had to be when one was taking care of an unusually adventurous genius. While on their way to the hospital, Mrs. Hudson had tried to calm Molly, reassuring her with anecdotes of Sherlock's past escapades gone awry. If Sherlock had survived them all, he was bound to survive this one, too. Molly desperately wanted to believe it. But she wouldn't be completely at ease until she saw him for herself.

Mrs. Hudson was the one to reach for the door when they arrived, and despite all her best hopes, Molly saw visions of an empty room, with a nurse smoothing an empty bed, meeting the two newcomers with a somber frown and a, "I'm sorry, but the doctors did everything they could . . ."

If self-torture was a branch of science, Molly Hooper would be its founding mother.

Mrs. Hudson turned to her with another reassuring smile. "Don't worry, dear. Sherlock's tough. Now come on."

And then the door opened, and there he was, Sherlock Holmes, sitting up in bed. Molly dismissed for the moment the fact that it was a hospital bed; that he'd been shorn of his long, black coat and was wearing a flimsy hospital gown; that his usually animated face looked drawn and haggard; or that there was even another person in the room.

All she saw was Sherlock. He was awake, and was strong enough to be sitting up on his own, and when he looked at her and she saw recognition in his blue-grey eyes, all she felt was relief.

He was alive, still in this world, and everything was going to be okay.

* * *

Ah, yes. He should've known they would show up. Sherlock pouted. If they threw him a pity party, he would walk out of this hospital on his own, regardless of what he was wearing. Or _wasn't_ wearing, as the case may be.

"Yoo-hoo!" the landlady greeted. "Hello, dear, how are you feeling?" She flitted to his bedside, brushing a cool, gentle hand over his forehead. Only Mrs. Hudson could get away with such a personal touch. "Well, you have a bit of color in your cheeks, if I may say so, doesn't he, Molly?"

Molly Hooper stood at the foot of Sherlock's bed, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. If there was one word that could describe the expression on her face, though, it would be 'relieved'. "You do look better than you did last night."

"You were here?" Why was he surprised? He'd been taken to St. Bart's, after all.

"Yeah, but you weren't conscious yet." Molly's nervousness gave way to a burst of sincerity. "I'm so glad you're alright, Sherlock."

It would take a colder man than Sherlock Holmes not to be touched by her genuine concern. But old habits were hard to break. He merely nodded. "Yes . . . I'm glad I'm alright, too."

And her nervousness was back. Molly smiled with an audibly embarrassed exhalation of breath, ducked her head and tucked her hair behind her ear. "O-Of course you are—oh! Sorry, I didn't see you there."

The nurse pushed the lone chair forward. "Please, ma'am, take a seat," she offered to Mrs. Hudson.

"That's very kind of you, dear," Mrs. Hudson said.

"Don't mention it. I'll leave you with him." And the nurse sailed off without giving Sherlock the chart, although she did hand it to Molly.

Sherlock glowered at the nurse's retreating form. There was a Sally Donovan for every institution, apparently.

Molly skimmed the chart first, and then turned her attention back to Sherlock. "Where's John?"

"Probably getting me checked out, as we speak."

"Are you sure it's okay for you to leave so soon?"

"I'm not badly injured at all, according to my physician. And you can read the results for yourself."

"You were hit by a car last night."

"I vaguely remember."

"Still—"

Irritated now, Sherlock muttered, "You can examine me yourself if you're so unconvinced."

Molly blushed a shade of red previously unknown to man. Sherlock's gut clenched. The accident must've shaken him up more roughly than he thought if he was throwing out unintentionally double-edged barbs.

Mrs. Hudson was giggling into her hands, he'd swear she was.

At that moment, John walked through the open doorway. Sherlock was beginning to suspect his friend had some kind of built-in radar for when the timing was perfect for him to enter a scene. "All done!" the doctor pronounced. "Get decent, Sherlock, we can go now." He sensed the atmosphere in the room, and even though there was no nudity involved, he said, "I've missed something, haven't I?"

Sherlock sank back against his pillows.

_I hate being a hero_.

* * *

Well, that's that! There goes my message in a bottle. Anybody who cares to review, please do so with kindness. Cheers!


End file.
